


we are the wicked, we are the wild youth

by metalmeisje



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Blackwatch Era, Blackwatch Genji Shimada, Blackwatch Reaper | Gabriel Reyes, Blood, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-13
Updated: 2018-11-13
Packaged: 2019-08-23 03:04:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16610681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/metalmeisje/pseuds/metalmeisje
Summary: It's always between him and something.





	we are the wicked, we are the wild youth

**Author's Note:**

> My first OW fanfic drabble! Be gentle with me? Inspired by a lovely Genji friend on Discord, ilu Floof. Very stream-of-consciousness, but hey, that's my TM at this point.

When you live your life a monster, it’s always between you and something. Gabriel Reyes knows this well.

Sometimes, it’s between him and the enemy. A Talon goon, a sloppy spy, a too-aggressive lone wolf trying to kick Gabe’s legs out from under him either literally or figuratively. Between him and the enemy, is the point – that’s how it’s  _supposed_  to be.

He kicks, shoots, ghosts away from danger like he is already dead (maybe he is, whatever kept his heart beating sure doesn’t anymore) and lets the rest of the world fade away until there is nothing but this.

The fight, the fury, the inevitable fall.

Usually, the other falls. Sometimes it’s him and he wakes up in the med bay, yanks the needles from his arms and ignores the pointed looks of Ziegler and O’Deorain as he goes back to training.

Sometimes it’s between him and a knife. He keeps this a secret locked up tight, and curls around it when he pretends to be asleep until the darkness becomes less suffocating.

Sometimes, it’s between him and the wall of all things. SEP looms over his shoulder still, a dark shadow and a shining beacon in this shithole of a world, and when he goes to work on a punching bag, he always comes out the victor. Just him, his fists, the leather -

the wall.

Sometimes, he misses. Sometimes, he pretends to miss, feels his knuckles connect with the concrete wall. The shockwave travels through his arm and the wall splits apart under his knuckles, and it reminds him of the way his spine feels, sometimes.

He grits his teeth, shakes the tremors off and goes back to fighting.

It’s always between him and  _something_.

It’s always a fight, always an endless search for a victor and, inevitably, a loser. He would prefer himself to be the victor. Sometimes, when Moira sends him off with a pat on the back and pays no mind to the way his heart seems to rattle the bars of his ribcage, the way he seems to disappear, he prefers something else.

His rage grows and his team grows with it. When he picks up McCree it almost feels like a joke, like a scene from one of those bad telenovelas -

_Come with me if you want to live, kid._

Or, rather:  _Come with me if you want a life worth living._  Gabe never liked the idea of life behind bars, and he is not alone in that, so McCree follows.

Moira, too, follows. Insomuch as she’s capable of pretending she’s not on top of the world, only listening to orders.

(They both know shes holds  _his_ life in the palms of her hand, but neither speak of it. There’s no need. There’s a fight to win,  _that’s_  the need.)

~~Jack does not follow~~.

Genji Shimada, eventually, follows. Sometimes, Gabe wonders just how badly he must have been hurting to say yes to the terms of a contract so vague even he wonders how they got away with it. A faint promise of revenge, of improvement, of  _life._

(A life worth living,  _que te den_.)

Gabe loves them, in a way. He realizes this sometimes, at the most inconvenient of moments. (As if the world would ever do  _him_ , of all people, a favor.)

McCree always looks like he balances on the edge of a blade, torn between southern charm and the terror of a young child left alone in the dark. He will always laugh it off, and if he cries in his room sometimes, Reyes will stay silent to the grave. Past it, too.

Moira’s eyes follow him through the room when he paces, explains their next mission; he feels her gaze prickle in the back of his neck, and wonders if she’s waiting for him to shatter into a million little pieces. He has not given her the satisfaction yet.

Genji -

Genji just  _watches_. It would be unnerving, but Gabe is used to it. Sometimes, in an unprotected moment, he sees the young Shimada curled up on a bench, the fingers of his one remaining hand pressed into his eye sockets in a gesture Gabriel knows intimately.

Genji watches him with eyes that flicker red, like a warning sign, and well. Gabriel has a habit of ignoring those.

It’s always between him and something.

Late at night, he passes Genji’s room. The night is silent in a way that haunts him down to his rotten bones so he moves like a ghost, quiet, impossibly quick. Yet it’s a sound, the tiniest fragile thing, that makes him stop in his tracks.

(It’s between him -

And a knife, sometimes. )

He watches, silently. It’s a scene he knows well, so he doesn’t interrupt. Genji, curled in on himself like even taking up space hurts him. It’s so dark that no one can see and Gabe understands that, too. But the red of Genji’s eyes, flickering like a dying moth, get caught on the sharp edge of a blade. It brushes over a mess of cables that play at being veins, and all Gabe can think for a moment is,  _what if they catch on something?_ But-

In the dark, blood always looks black. Gabe would recognize it anywhere.

He says nothing, not even when Genji looks up like a young deer caught in headlights. Some sort of hydraulic system whirrs, he thinks he hears metal scraping over metal, and for a moment he wonders how Genji can sleep with all that noise, with a body that refuses to obey him and often does the opposite. He does not ask.

Sometimes it’s between you and a blade, and the pain that comes with it is an intimate friend. He can’t begrudge Genji that. But when Gabe takes the knife there is no resistance, and some old, dead part of him is grateful for it.

He says nothing.

Genji, too, stays silent.

He doesn’t blame him.

The bionic fluid fizzes and bubbles when he drips it on Genji’s arm, and even though he is only holding Genji’s wrist loosely, the tremors that rock Genji’s remade body touch him, so he swallows that down too. What’s one more secret to curl around at night.

Gabriel could tell his inferior that he is being stupid, that he should be grateful for the second chance that he’s been given. Or possibly, card his fingers through the young man’s hair and let his heart mourn just how  _much_  Genji has to carry for someone so broken, how many promises he’s probably watched fade into dust because of one blade striking true.

Gabriel Reyes is many things, but he’s not a hypocrite.

They stand opposite each other the next morning: Gabe in his trademark sweats and a hoodie, at least until he gets too hot and takes it off, Genji glimmering in the morning sun, his body a weapon and poised for a fight.

He stands a little too straight, a little too formal, still not quite at ease with the way his new neurons respond to him. But his eyes glow steady, and when Gabe rolls his shoulders back and raises a brow, Genji gives the smallest of nods and it’s enough.

Oh  _god_ , he hopes it’s enough.


End file.
